The Daily Signal - For 7 Days, We Remember Our Past to Secure Our Future

Episode Date: September 11, 2020

Patriot Week, launched in 2009, is a week dedicated to honoring America’s past and studying its founding principles. Every year, Sept. 11 marks the first day of Patriot Week and Constitution Day, Sept. 17, brings it to a close.  Judge Michael Warren of Oakland County, Michigan, and his daughter, Leah, founded Patriot Week to celebrate national pride and educate Americans about the history of our country. Warren joins the podcast on this first day of Patriot Week 2020 to explain how you and your family can take part in remembering our past over the next seven days. Click here to register for Patriot Week. We also cover these stories: About 857,000 workers file for unemployment insurance for the first time.  Presidential daughter Ivanka Trump says she will take the coronavirus vaccine, when it comes, on “The View.” A new poll by Gallup and Knight Foundation finds that 69% of Americans say there is bias in the news others consume, while only 29% worry that the news they consume contains bias. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, September 11th. I'm Rachel Del Judas. And I'm Virginia Allen. Today, we remember the 2,97 lives lost on September 11th. And we honor those who have sacrificed so much to defend our nation. Today also marks the beginning of Patriot Week, launched in 2009 by Judge Michael Warren and his daughter, Leah, as a seven-day period dedicated to honoring America's past and study. its founding principles. Judge Orrin joins the show to explain more about Patriot Week and how you and your

family can take advantage of the dynamic talks and other resources available over the next several days. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. A whopping 857,000 workers filed for unemployment insurance for the first time last week and increased. of approximately 20,000, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Labor. In the past six months, more than 55 million workers have filed for unemployment. On Wednesday, Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward released several clips from a February and March interview with President Trump in which Trump admits to trying to downplay the severity

of COVID-19 in order to keep Americans from panicking. The Today Show released several of the post-published clips. Take a listen to a portion of Trump's March 19th conversation with Woodward. It's clear just from what's in on the public record that you went through a pivot on this to, oh my God, the gravity is almost inexplicable and unexplainable. Well, I think Bob really, to be honest with you. Sure, I want you to be. I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down. I still like playing it down

because I don't want to create a panic. After the clip's release, Trump explained to press at the White House on Wednesday, per Politico, we had to show calm. The last thing we can show is panic or excitement or fear or anything else. We had to take care of the situation we were given.

And on Thursday, Trump spoke out against Woodward's decision to hold the clip until now, tweeting, Bob Woodward had my quotes for many months. If he thought they were so bad or dangerous, why didn't he immediately report them in an effort to save lives? Didn't he have an obligation to do so? No, because he knew they were good and proper answers. Calm, no panic.

And Vice President Mike Pence defended the president's words during an interview with Fox News on Thursday morning. It's important to remember that the president made that comment four days after we shut down the entire American economy. to put the health of America first. And so look, from the moment he tasked me to lead the White House coronavirus task force, the president made it clear. He wanted us to deploy the full resources of the federal government, a whole of America approach, and the progress that we have made, I believe, is literally saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives.

But all along the way, what the American people saw was a president who was projecting, the kind of leadership, the kind of confidence in the American people and all of our health care experts and our doctors and nurses that you would just expect from a president in a challenging time like this. Ivanka Trump says she will take the coronavirus vaccine on the view. In a tweet tagging the view co-host Joy Behar, Ivanka Trump said, I would come on your show to do so. I trust the FDA and so should all Americans. Vanquishing this virus should be our collective top. priority. On Wednesday, Behar had said, he will push anything to get reelected. Don't fall for it. And by the way, I will take vaccine after Ivanka takes it. A new Gallup and Knight Foundation

poll reveals that 7 in 10 Americans, or 69%, believe that there is bias in the news others consume, while only 29% of Americans worry that the news they are consuming contains bias. Six in every 7 Americans say they believe the news in general is biased. Additionally, four and every five adults in the nation believe that the spread of online misinformation is a major problem. Night reports that in partnership with Gallup, they polled more than 20,000 U.S. adults and found deepening pessimism and further partisan entrenchment about how the news media delivers on its democratic mandate for factual, trustworthy information, and as Americans have not only lost confidence in the ideals of an objective media, they believe news organizations actively support the partisan

divide. Hashtag cancel Netflix is trending. Why? Because its new film, QD's, is facing sharp criticism for its hyper-sexualization of young children. The film received backlash because it originally featured a sexualized poster of young girls for which Netflix had apologized for. A scene, however, of girls dancing sexually in front of an audience has resulted in new calls to cancel Netflix. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Judge Michael Warren about why he chose to found Patriot Week, a week dedicated to honoring America's past and studying our founding principles. Americans have almost entirely forgotten their history.

That's right. and if we want to keep our republic, this needs to change. I'm Jared Stepman. And I'm Fred Lucas. We host The Right Side of History, a podcast dedicated to restoring informed patriotism and busting the negative narratives about America's past. Hollywood, the media, and academia have failed a generation.

We're here to set the record straight on the ideas and people who've made this country great. Subscribe to the Right Side of History on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Stitcher today. I am joined by Michael Warren. a judge and the co-creator of Patriot Week, a week dedicated to honoring and remembering America's history. Judge Warren, thanks so much for being here. Well, it's my pleasure. You know, I'm a subscriber and I love your podcast. So to be on, it's a real thrill. Oh, thanks so much. Well, we're so excited to talk today about Patriot Week. You and your daughter started Patriot Week in 2009. and really, you know, it's a week that is dedicated to celebrating and honoring our country's history.

Every year Patriot Week begins on September 11th and it ends on September 17th, which is Constitution Day. So why did you and your daughter see this need for a special week dedicated to really remembering our founding principles? Well, I mean, we back then understood, and I think it's become even more obvious today, that there's a great need in our country to understand our founding first principles in our history, to embrace them, to understand what they're about, and then to understand that we're not perfect and that we need to build upon our history and where we've come before to be able to achieve even greater freedoms and liberties. And just as a side note, or maybe underlying this, I should say, is that unfortunately our educational

system has done a really abysmal job in educating our students about American history and civics. There are studies upon studies that reveal that are K-12 students as well as a general public are really struggling with understanding the basics of our country and our constitution. And just as one example, when we started Patriot Week, there was a poll that had come out which showed that about one half of the people could identify the three, branches of government. So, you know, there's not this hard. There's a legislative and executive and judicial branch. And about half of the people could identify those three, which is of grave concern. You understand a very basic concept like that, how we're supposed to maintain our freedom

to liberty. It's gotten worse. Now it's less than half of the people understand the separation of powers in the three branches of government. So there's a real need. And one of the things that that the founders really understood about making and enabling our citizenry to understand our founding first principles and their history was to celebrate them. And so we had a civic calendar. And that calendar has really been ruined over the course of the years. And so the idea of Patriot Week is to create a new civic celebration of America. As you mentioned, it starts on 9-11, which is obviously the anniversary of the terrorist attacks. and since September 17th, which is the anniversary of the signing of the Constitution.

And each day we celebrate a founding first principle from a Declaration of Independence, key documents and speeches that embody that. Founding Fathers and other great patriots and made those principles come alive and then flags from a history that represent those principles. So it's very organized. It's grassroots. It's been recognized by the United States Senate unanimously last year over, 15 states have recognized it over the years.

And there's a multitude of ways to get involved. And I recommend that your listeners go to patriotweek.org to learn more. I wanted to mention its origin because I think this is really neat. It started in 2009 when my daughter was just 10. And Leah and I were having a lunch. And I was explaining to her the importance of American history. and civics and the need to commemorate that in a symbolic way. And the reason I came up with this insight was because I was born the child of a

disaffected Catholic and a atheistic father. And so I was raised as a nothing. And my dad would always say, Mike, you can believe anything. I just remember it's off. He wouldn't use the word baloney, but you know what I mean. And so I, I, I, was a very young child as an atheist. And I kept that up up until high school. And then in high school, I said, you know, maybe there's God, maybe there's not. So I became an agnostic. And,

you know, I said maybe the Buddhists are right. Maybe the Hindus, maybe the Catholics, who know, is the Greek pantheon. And then of all places in Ann Arbor, in law school, the Holy Spirit found me. And I converted overnight. Called my little Italian grandma, the traditional Roman Catholic grandma and said grandma you're going to take me to church this weekend and she said Michael said yes he said is this a joke I said no no really grandma you're going to take me sure and very quickly I converted as an adult and I tell you that because as an adult convert I had to go through religious education formation classes and those classes teach you a lot about the faith but one of the things that I didn't really think about as a non-believer was that we have this thing

called a liturgical calendar. We have all these holidays who are supposed to stop in the hustle bust of our day and to renew our faith. And all the great religions have this. Judaism, Hinduism,

Buddhists, all forms of Christianity, Muslims, they all have this idea of a liturgical calendar. And I realized, as I was doing some historical research,

that America used to have a civic calendar. We had Washington's birthday, Lincoln's birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Armist's Day. Why? To stop on the huss of both of our days and to renew our faith and our country. And in fact, when we declared independence, Jen Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, that the anniversary of that day would be forever remembered in America. We celebrated with bells and bonfires and games and speeches and illuminations in the sky from one down the continent to the other now and forevermore. And he was right. On July 4th, we still celebrate Independence Day. But he also said it should be a solemn day of devotion for the blessings of liberty. It ought to be solemnized. Now, I don't know about you and most of your listeners, but I suspect the last time he had a hot dog at July 4th party, it was not a particularly solemn occasion. We have hollowed out and cheapened and commercialized our civic calendar, the empty excuses for barbecues, three-day weekends, appliance, sales, you know, whatever it is.

And then explaining this to my 10-year-old daughter, Leah, at lunch, and she got really angry, pounded on the table and said, Dad, that's wrong. We need to do something. We need to start a new celebration for America. And so that's how it started.

And to be audacious because, you know, 10-year-olds are audacious, because, you know, I opened Pandora's box. I had agreed to do something. She said, let's make it a week. So we look at the calendar and realized that 9-11 through 9-17 is the seven-day period was a perfect fit for what we were trying to do to renew the spirit of America.

Judge Warren, thank you so much just for sharing all that kind of past history of how Patriot Week began this amazing project, and specifically really how you and your daughter worked together to launch it. I know that Leah not too too long ago gave a youth TED Talk, where she discussed really some of these big issues that we're facing in America that young people and Americans in general don't have a good understanding of our nation's history. Why do you believe that knowledge of history is so connected to America's success in the future? Well, that's a great question. And first off, I would say that we are not like any other country in the world. We were founded on this proposition

that was in the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truly, to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they're endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that when any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to establish new government, laying its foundation of such principles and organizing its powers such form as them so seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness. Now, those words from the Declaration of Independence were

revolutionary in 1776, and they remain revolutionary today. We're the only country founded on the ideal that we have unalienable rights, that God has given us those rights that cannot be taken away from man, and that we have a sacred obligation to protect those rights, and that that's the whole purpose of government is to protect our rights. If you don't understand that, if you don't understand that your rights come from God and that they're born within you, but just by being a human being, then it's very easy to give them away. It's very easy to let the government run over your rights and to ignore your unalienable rights. And I think we've seen this over the course of really decades where people have, instead of spending their rights and saying government is supposed

to be our servant, it's been reversed where people feel like they're the servant of the government and that the government gives us what we can use. Those are privileges, not right. And that's a fundamentally corrupt way of looking at the American experiment of liberty. And there's a whole host of these, right? The rule of law is intended to ensure that everyone follows the law from, the janitor to the CEO, from the prisoner to the judge or the president. And if you don't understand that that's what the rule of law is about, then it's very easy to ignore it and have very serious consequences for society. And because we don't understand that we live in this uniquely blessed country, it's easy to give it away and not even realize it. So then tell me specifically

how is Patriot Week taking a stand and saying, you know, we will not forget our past and actually actively working to educate Americans, both young and old, on history and on founding documents. Right. So we, as I mentioned, each day we celebrate a founding first principles and Declaration of Independence, key documents and speeches, founding fathers, and other great patriots. And we have, and flags from history. And we have a whole set of resources that are on our website, which people can, you don't have to do it just during the week, right? You can do it anytime. Learn more about American history and our Constitution or Declaration of Independence. We have lesson plans. We have a TV show. We have

like 130 episodes up on demand. We have a great podcast called Patriot Lessons, American History Civic that you can access there on Apple or Google Play or wherever. We have a lot of resources on the website. Normally during the week and through the year, we have had festivals, Paluzas, picnics, parades, panel discussions, guest speakers, essay contest, audio contest, just a whole slew of different. activities and programs from a whole slew of people that are engaged. And I want to emphasize that this is nonpartisan.

You know, we have a 501C3, and we are really trying to unite people, the whole country, behind those sounding first principles. And, you know, you don't have to be on any particular side of the political spectrum. Everybody should believe, and I think almost everybody does, except for maybe not. Nazis and communist in those founding first principles. Once they think about it, they go, oh, yes, that makes sense that we have a number. Oh, yes, it makes sense that we have a limited government.

But unless it's up front and in your mind as you're looking at policy, thinking about voting, thinking about participating, and it's very easy to be distracted by, you know, the Kardashian sisters and TikTok and all this other stuff. So we are very countercultural. We're trying to bring people back to their. roots and to remind people why it's so important that they remain engaged as citizens in the full meaning of that word. So who actually participates in this week? It's a great question. So anyone can participate and we have had a number of independent organizations like

Klonuses, Rotary Clubs, Chambers of Commerce, schools, universities, community colleges, churches, a lot of organizations celebrate Patriot Week in the way that makes most sense for them and their constituency. So we do offer specific ways, for example, let's say you're somebody that doesn't really have a lot of people that might be interested in this, and you want to just learn more. You can go and participate in Patriot Week. On the website, we have a set of daily celebration that you can do by yourself or with close family and friends. So it's about reading documents and thinking through different issues and then the lesson plans.

But there's, it's because it's so grassroots, every year it's different. So this year, with the pandemic and all the challenges, we've gone with a Patriot Academy. So every day we're going through all the different topics that we cover for that particular day. So starting on September 11th we have in the evening. So you go to Patriot.org and register, even now as you listen to this podcast, a virtual Patriot Academy about all the themes that happen on 9-11. And for each day thereafter, all the way through Constitution Day, we're doing that. We have a virtual toast, which usually we do in person and we toast the Constitution and people all around the table. And there's dozens of people that do this make specific toast.

And so we're going to have one of those. We have a rule of law forum, which is going to be, again, virtual on the Saturday of this Patriot Week. So there's a lot of different activities. Normally, it's spread not only through Michigan, but we've had activities in New York and New Hampshire and Texas and Arizona. It's not just the one spot. We really are working very hard to have it spread across the country. So if I want to sit down with my family, every day this week, beginning today, and do these activities and listen to the lectures or the

podcast, read the documents about how much time should I be planning, you know, every day, you know, is it something that a family could kind of do after dinner altogether over the course of an hour or two? Or are we talking about this is more like, you know, kind of a full day given towards reading these documents and so on? I would say this, that people can do what they, you know, they can pick and choose. It's kind of like a buffet. And we have activities that only take five minutes. But I'll tell you, even a five-man activity, you know, think about prayer. You know, you pray for five minutes that means something. You, you spend some time learning about our founding documents or our first principles or a flag or a historical figure like Frederick Douglass or Martin Luther King, Jr., or George

Washington, or James Madison. You'll be a better person when you're done, and you'll be a better informed citizens. So we have five-minute activities, 20-minute activities, hour activities. The academies last just an hour, so you can get a whole bunch of content in our Patriot Academy during this week, and those will remain posted on our website. We also have a virtual tour of a courthouse, my courthouse, Oakland County, Michigan. That's about 45-minute. We have a Constitution Day kind of review of the Constitution. The Declaration, the Declaration, the Declaration. of Independence. That's also a video that lasts about 50 minutes. So there's, you can real, and the TV shows that we have are about a half hour, podcast can go from a half an hour to a little

more than an hour. So you can really pick and choose and decide what's best for you and your family. So what's the response that you have received over the years from those who do choose to participate? I'll tell you, this is something that there's a real hunger for. There are, so many people that love this country and feel like they were cheated in school or cheated by the kind of the predilections of current society and not understanding our origins and how fruitful we have developed. And I want to emphasize this. We've talked a lot about the founders.

We also celebrate women's suffrage and gender equality. So we have Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Caddy Stanton, the 19th Amendment. Suffragettes had their own flag. It seems really cool that nobody knows about. And we also celebrate racial equality. So we have Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. And I have a dream speech. And the flag that flew over for Sumpter, which has a really interesting and fascinating history.

So this is for everyone. And the response has been very robustly positive. and it really from across the political spectrum. So, for example, in my state, U.S. Senator Gary Peters, co-sponsored a resolution with Senator Joe Kennedy, so he had a Democrat and a Republican, and they got the Patriot Week resolution passed unanimously from the U.S. Senate last year,

which I think is quite a testament because nothing did pass them unanimously. But just your everyday person is, so excited to learn and to be engaged and feel some pride in our country in a good way. And so I think it really has been resonating. Well, and your love for our country, your patriotism began long before the founding of Patriot Week. And it was really well kind of comprised in your book, America's Survival Guide. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yes, thank you.

So America's Survival Guide and has a long subtitle, which is how to stop America's impending suicide by reclaiming our first principles in history. And that the book is about how we as a country have forgotten our founding first principles in history. Why that's a great threat to our survival is a free people. So it goes through many of the things that we're talking about now. It then goes through what the first principles are. It talks about the American Revolution, goes through that, how. the revolution was motivated by principles and not greed, not, you know, you hear all these stories, economics, or now there's this bizarre one from the 1619 project that the revolution

was all about maintaining slavery, which is ridiculous. So it dispels those myths. Talks about the constitutional convention, goes to walk through how the constitution was designed and framed to protect liberty, and then goes through the civil rights, the civil rights. The civil right struggles as well as the abolitionist struggle and the emancipation with slaves, as well as the suffragette movement, and how women finally gained the right to vote. And then has a set of recommendations about what to do about the crisis, one of which was kind of reviving our old holidays, but that's really difficult. So if I wrote the book again, I would say, you know, the old holidays, try your best, but really Patriot Week, is a new holiday that hasn't been

corrupted. And so that's a way to renew the spirit of America. Well, we certainly appreciate the work that you all are doing at Patriot Week. And, you know, I think it's such a perfect way to really take time to commemorate what happened, you know, so long ago in our nation's history, our founding, but also take time to reflect on September 11th and on those lives that were lost. And also to look forward to how do we really hold our history in its rightful place so that we don't repeat mistakes of the past. One more time, would you just tell us how our listeners can sign up for Patriot Week and be involved this week? Absolutely. So patriotweek.org is the website.

And I encourage everyone to go there. You'll find something that you'll enjoy. And then the book, you can go to America's Survival Guide.com. or you can find it on Amazon and other online retailers. Wonderful. Judge Warren, thanks to you so much for our time today. We just really appreciate you coming on. Well, it was my pleasure, and God bless you and God bless America. And that'll do it for today's episode.

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